Dark and Deadly Page 6

  Cake. Life was simple when all it took was baking a cake. Why couldn’t she be more like Pam? Torie cut off that line of thinking. If she’d thought it once, she’d thought it a hundred times.

  “That’s good. Any idea where we can send the package from here?”

  “May have already found a place to stash it. I’ll keep you posted.”

  Paul had come back, and was waiting impatiently to talk to her.

  “Uh, I have to go, Pam. Paul’s back. I’ll let you know what’s up as soon as I know, okay?”

  “’kay, see ya, and love ya, girl.”

  “You, too.”

  Torie flipped shut the phone, and turned to face Paul. For the first time, she actually looked at him, really looked. His face was drawn and pale. The lines around his eyes and mouth were more pronounced. As she watched, he downed two tablets, chasing them with water from a bottle he held.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, honestly concerned. “You look…”

  “That bad, huh?” Paul said, frowning. He rubbed his eyes, which just made them redder, and made him look even more haggard.

  “Yeah. That bad.”

  “Tell me what you really think. Seriously,” he quipped. “Don’t mince words.”

  Torie smiled. “Sorry. It’s just I’ve never seen you so out of sorts, I guess. You always seem to be in that ‘I’m in charge’ mode.”

  He grimaced. “Thanks, I guess. Although that really doesn’t sound like a compliment.”

  “True. I’m just not used to you being, um, human.”

  That made him laugh. “Oh, I’m human all right. Damnably so.”

  Torie had no idea what he meant. She was about to ask when his cell phone rang. He held up a finger, motioning her to be quiet.

  “Okay, great. We’re in…yeah, okay. Officer Rhodes. Yes. Thanks.”

  “What was that all about?”

  “Airport security is happy to escort us out of a private entrance in order to get all the reporters out of the airport. They don’t like it, they don’t like doing it, but the press has access to the public areas of the airport just like anyone else, and the TV vans and so forth can circle all day long. They’d rather have us out of here and get it over with.”

  “Ooookay. Our luggage?”

  “Will be picked up from the carousel and brought to us at the door. Another officer will round up a driver for us.”

  “You didn’t drive?”

  “No, took a shuttle.”

  They both heard footsteps, and Paul stood up to greet a uniformed man. “Officer.”

  “Mister Jameson?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “If you and your guest would come with me, please.”

  “Sure,” Paul said as he picked up his briefcase and hefted Torie’s carry-on bag. He made a soft oofing noise and glanced at her as if to say, “What have you got in this, rocks?”

  “Running shoes. Books.”

  “How many?”

  “I expected to be there for a while longer.”

  “Uh huh.”

  She thought he muttered something about her being a crazy woman, but the words were lost in the throng of the airport’s noisy passageways. The officer led them down the concourse, then ducked into a bland passageway. Three doors led in different directions, but all were marked with “No Admittance” signs.

  Rhodes took the central door, sliding a keypass over an electronic plate. He ushered them into what looked like a gray tunnel, which led down two sets of steps before leveling out. Torie was so turned around and confused by it all, she had no idea where in the airport they could possibly be.

  “Here you are. Your luggage.”

  Their bags sat by an equally unremarkable exit door. Beyond it, a dark sedan idled in the sunshine.

  “The driver doesn’t know who you are or where you’re going. I’d suggest you not go straight home or to your office,” Rhodes said as he once again uncoded the door. “These drivers usually try to sell information to the press before the car door’s closed behind you.”

  “Good advice,” Paul muttered, offering the man his hand. “Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  He shook Torie’s hand as well, and they were on their way. She glanced back, but Rhodes was already gone from the door. The driver, his eyes alive with curiosity, held open the door for her, then helped Paul load the luggage in the trunk.

  “Where to?”

  “The city. Market Street and Fourth. The Bourse Shops.”

  Torie started to speak, but Paul shushed her and motioned to his PDA.

  “I’ll have my secretary pick us up.”

  “Good idea.”

  Nothing else was said for the entire ride. The driver attempted some conversation, but when neither of them picked up the gambit, he finally fell silent. That didn’t stop him from constantly checking them out in the rearview mirror. Evidently, Rhodes had been correct. No way they could trust this guy to keep their destination a secret.

  “She’ll be waiting on the Independence Mall side,” Paul said quietly. “We’ll get you home, and then you can come to the office tomorrow, okay?”

  “Do I need to call the police or anything?” Torie whispered.

  “No, I’ll take care of that. I’m your lawyer now, like it or not.”

  “But you…”

  “Don’t argue with me right now, Torie. Please.”

  She probably would have continued but for that one word. She’d seldom heard it from him. In fact, she tried to remember the last time she had heard it. Those thoughts occupied her the rest of the ride. They paid the driver and got out at the corner. Paul’s secretary waved from a nearby coffee shop. Paul waved back, but waited to walk over until the sedan from the airport had pulled into traffic and moved off down the long one-way street.

  “Let’s get going, quickly,” Paul said as he took her arm and marched her across the street to the shop. “Hey, Martha, thanks for coming on such short notice.

  “Torie, I’d like you to meet my assistant, Martha Prinz. Martha, this is Torie Hagen.”

  “I was happy to help.” Martha smiled at Paul and gave a brisk nod toward Torie. Evidently, Paul’s attitude was echoed by his assistant. “Hello, Ms. Hagen. I’m glad you got here safely. Let’s get both of you under wraps.”

  Walking around the block, pulling her luggage with her carry-on piled on top, Torie wondered what the hell had happened to the tidy, boring life she’d tried to build. Nothing about the past five years had been tidy, but this was even worse.

  “I’ve arranged to get Ms. Hagen home,” Martha said as they walked. “You did leave your car at your hotel didn’t you, ma’am?”

  “Please, call me Torie. And yes, I did.”

  “Well, we’ll be sure one of our trustworthy car services get you home quickly. No press will find out anything from the people we hire.”

  “That’s good to know.” What else was there to say? She couldn’t imagine the press knowing where she was staying, or working, or anything. She couldn’t imagine the trouble she was in.

  Torie frowned at Paul’s back. They were descending into the depths of a parking garage, with Paul and Martha at the front of the car. How could she be a murder suspect?

  “Paul,” she began, just as the doors opened.

  “Hold that thought,” he cautioned, checking outside the doors before letting her get off.

  “You’re acting as if there were a raft of reporters waiting at every turn.”

  “There could be. Todd was well loved in our fair city, and you were not only his jilted bride, but rumors are already floating about what happens to his estate.”

  “His estate?” Torie was flabbergasted. What did that have to do with her?

  “Hush, now. We don’t want anyone to overhear us discussing anything of the sort.” Martha was the voice of caution. She led the way to a silver Mercedes with faintly tinted windows. Paul piled their luggage in the trunk, and helped her into the backseat.

  “You won’t be s
een back here. Martha often picks me up, so hopefully no one will think you’re in here.”

  She nodded. Right now, she had so much to think about that she didn’t want to talk, or be seen.

  Torie closed her eyes and dropped her head onto the smooth leather of the headrest. How was she going to explain this to her boss? Or her Mama? Her brother would know immediately that it was all crazy. Pam obviously thought so already. Dev probably didn’t care as long as he could get as far away as possible from her. Lord only knew what GoodMama would think.

  “Torie,” Paul said as they pulled into the garage at his office. “I want you to stay here with Martha for a few minutes until I’m sure there’s no one waiting upstairs. Will you do that for me?”

  “Sure.” Torie managed the word without lifting her head. Her mind was fogging over with all the thoughts and ideas, the details and ramifications of Todd’s death. Who would she call when she wanted crazy advice? For solid business advice, she had always called her brother. Even though he was younger than she, he’d been a suit-and-tie businessman from the time he was twelve. But when she wanted off-the-wall, go-for-it kind of advice, she’d called Todd.

  Paul stood there for a moment, looking at her. It was unnerving because she could swear he was reading her mind. He didn’t say anything, just turned and walked away. Martha, in the driver’s seat, never looked back. She kept her eyes on Paul as he walked through the door to the elevators, and she kept her gaze there the whole time he was gone.

  Mercifully, Paul returned within five minutes. “We’re good. Why don’t you come on up, Torie? We’ll talk.”

  “Talk?”

  “I’ll fill you in on what the police have, or at least what they’ve shared.”

  “Okay.”

  “Mister Jameson,” Martha began.

  “It’s okay, Martha. You can head out. I’ll send for the car for Torie.”

  Martha didn’t say anything, but Torie was sure she disapproved, just by her body language.

  Paul confirmed it once they got to his office. “Don’t mind Martha. She’s overprotective.”

  “Why? Surely you’ve already shared with her how much you dislike me.”

  “I don’t dislike you, Torie. And no, I don’t share my opinions with my assistant.”

  “Ha. Yeah, like she doesn’t know your opinion. She probably knows it before you do,” Torie said as she walked into the spacious office. Framed photos of beach scenes, in haunting black and white, graced the walls. They were of empty stretches of sand, or twisted driftwood. No people. No color. They made her sad, and she said so.

  “Really? I find them restful,” Paul replied. He seemed surprised. “Nothing but sand and waves and peace.”

  “You crave peace?” There was a surprise. Paul had always struck her as the quintessential party animal.

  He smiled. “Sometimes. The older I get, you know the line.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “So, have a seat. Let’s get this over with.”

  Nice. He couldn’t wait to get rid of her. Suddenly the thought of her empty, cheerless Extended Suites room made her want to cry. She longed for the comfort of her home, her things. Her dog. All of which were currently covered with soot, and under investigation, or in veterinary care.

  “What do I need to do to convince them I didn’t do this?”

  “Explain how either your blood or hair got to the church, and all over Todd.”

  “What?” Shocked, Torie just stared at him. “My blood? My hair?”

  “That’s what I’ve heard.”

  “But I haven’t even seen Todd in six months. I wasn’t supposed to see him until Friday night. How could anything of mine be anywhere near Todd? I don’t even have a cut.” Torie looked at her hands, thinking that surely she’d see something, hear something that made some sense, because nothing Paul was saying made any.

  “I don’t know. Officially, I don’t know that much. They want you to submit to a voluntary DNA sampling. That tells me there’s either blood or hair, and I’d think that if they want DNA, it’s probably blood.”

  “But, I haven’t been anywhere near Todd. I haven’t bled on anything of his. What?”

  Paul was pointing at her arm. A long shallow scratch showed through the gap at her wrist. “How’d you get that?”

  “I think I got it when I fell on my deck after the explosion. I have a bunch of cuts on my shoulders and back, too, from the flying glass.”

  There was a quaver in her voice and she fought to suppress it. She’d gotten that particular cut on her little mission with Pam. Their creepy little escapade was taking on a more sinister tone with each passing day. She wished now that she’d told the officers about it, despite the fact that it wasn’t legal. In the face of murder charges, it was definitely the lesser of the evils.

  Then again, since she did have cuts and scrapes virtually everywhere from the explosion, it was logical.

  “Give blood recently?”

  “Yeah, you know I did. You and all your staff went that day, too, to the Chamber blood drive. I saw Melvin Jr. and Pratt Sr. there. Melvin was volunteering, wasn’t he?”

  Paul flipped open his calendar, noted the date. “Yeah, Pratt Sr. set that up as a fund-raiser. Nearly two weeks ago. Blood doesn’t last that long, so maybe my contact’s wrong. It could be hair, or skin, or something. Who knows. But,” he said as he turned back to her, “that’s one thing they’re asking for. The other is a detailed, written time line of your activities that day. Also, they want to know more about this whole Black Widow thing.” Paul leaned forward, but his dark eyes gave away none of his feelings. “What’s that about, Torie? Where’d they get this idea about you being some kind of man-eater?”

  “Oh, Lord. Paul, it’s been going on since Todd and I split up. I’m cursed. I know it,” she said, shaking her head at the disbelief written on his features. “It sounds absolutely nuts. But ever since the wedding, or the not-wedding, it’s been this way. Anyone I go out with, no matter how casually, ends up getting hurt in some way.”

  As thoroughly as she could, she told him what had happened to her dates, especially Christian. She told him about the officer who’d asked her all about it as well. “The only thing I can think of is that that guy, Tibbet, told the press. I don’t know, Paul. All I know is that I gave up on dating. I refused to even go out to dinner with my cousin just before my house got torched. Before he got back to the conference center, he was attacked.”

  “Damn. That’s crazy, Torie.”

  “I know. It sounds insane. I mean, who am I? Why the hell would someone obsess over me?” The look Paul gave her was so strange, it made her shiver. “What? What do you know?”

  “Nothing. It’s just that Todd has had terrible luck ever since he won the money. Every time he came home to Philly, he’d have problems. His car windows were smashed one night. Someone slashed the tires another time. It ranged from nuisance stuff, like the rental car getting key-scratched, to the smash-up incident. And he’d always have trouble wherever he stayed, even the Ritz. He’d come back to his room, and there’d be no towels. Or all the linens would be gone off the bed and the mattress would be on the balcony. It was weird.”

  “He never mentioned any of that to me.”

  “I wonder why. I guess he didn’t want to worry you.”

  “That would be like him,” Torie agreed. It was all she could do not to cry. Paul seemed oblivious to her wavery answer.

  “I know you’re tired, but here’s what I need you to do,” he said, pulling a lined yellow pad out of a desk drawer. “Take this, and list every event, every time something happened to you or to someone else. I kept a list of the things that happened to Todd. We need to compare them, see if there’s a pattern.”

  “A pattern?” Torie was so tired, so confused, that it didn’t make sense.

  “Yes, yes, a pattern,” Paul insisted. “If there was someone after both of you, it makes this good evidence that you weren’t after Todd, but that someone is after b
oth of you.”

  “Both of us? But why?”

  “We’ll get to that, but for now, just go to the hotel and get started on that list, okay? I’ll send a car for you in the morning, too. Will nine o’clock work?”

  Baffled, Torie agreed. She wasn’t expected back at work for another two days, so she could do as he asked. She wasn’t sure she could remember everything without her notes, which were on her computer, which was melted at her house.

  “You’re exhausted, aren’t you?” Paul asked, as he came around the desk, sitting on the edge nearest her chair.

  “Yeah. I didn’t sleep much at the B and B.”

  “Hmmm. Well, let’s get you home, such as it is.”

  “Thanks.”

  Paul didn’t ask any more questions or give her any more instructions before helping her into the dark sedan that pulled to the curb in front of his office. “I’ll see you in the morning. We’ll go over the list, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Paul started to say something, then stopped. Instead, he bestowed an awkward pat on her shoulder, and shut the car door.

  Paul had given the car service the address, so Torie didn’t have to do anything, which was good. She was wrung out.

  At the apartment, she offered to pay the driver, but he declined, saying Paul had taken care of it. He helped her with her luggage, pulling the larger suitcase from the trunk and popping the handle up so she could set her carry-on bag on top and wheel them both behind her. She bid him good night as she turned toward the building.

  The shattering of the sedan’s car windshield had her spinning around, but she immediately obeyed the driver’s shout: “Get down!”

  Chapter Five

  “Stay down,” the driver yelled again, motioning her over to the car. He was simultaneously yelling into his cell phone, giving the address of the Extended Suites, and babbling about gunfire.

  In shock, Torie stared at the pile of pebbled glass at her feet. Her skirt was sprinkled with the octagonal shards, darkly tinted and jagged.

  “Shit!” the driver said as two more thwacking pops sounded.

  Torie had no idea what the sound was. “What’s happening? Why did the windows break?”